


Christmas Wrapping

by bwblack



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-23
Updated: 2010-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-14 11:18:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwblack/pseuds/bwblack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft and Lestrade's busy schedule keep tripping them up as they try to connect. Prompt: Songfic: Christmas Wrapping The Waitresses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Wrapping

**December 1990-**

“I couldn’t possibly get away,” Mycroft hates disappointing his mother. He would move mountains to keep from displeasing her. But going home for Christmas means he won’t be in on Saturday. Saturday is still Friday in North America… and by the time it’s Saturday there it is Monday in Australia.

The world doesn’t sleep, neither does Mycroft.

“Mycroft,” He’s heard his mother sigh that way before. He needs to get off the phone.

“I’ll call tomorrow… and I’ll try to get home for…” Mycroft runs his eyes over the calendar on his desk. December’s nearly gone, good riddance. He flipped the page on the calendar, “mid January, I’ll have a weekend off mid January.”

“You said that last year. You went on a ski trip.”

“I went to a wedding at a ski lodge.”

“I met your father at a wedding.”

“That’s not the story you told me.”

“It’s the one we told our parents.”

“Mummy!” Mycroft isn’t sure how scandalized he should be. He is sure he doesn’t want to know.

“Did you meet anybody?”

“I met thirty-seven people at the wedding."

“Mycroft!” His mother mimicked his earlier tone. “Anybody special?”

“No. Well, not at the wedding, anyway.”

\--

 **January 1990**

“Bit shopped out?” The man noted as he walked into the nearly empty ski shop.

“Really excellent service, too.” Mycroft tapped his watch, “The adolescent who works here told me he’d be with me in a moment. A moment isn’t really a standard unit of time. However, his definition of it seems to be significantly longer than my own."

The man looked at his watch, looked at the door and began browsing the shop’s sparse offerings. He had poked through the shop, and failed to find what he was looking for when the other man spoke up.

“Gearing up?” Mycroft asked after a moment or two. “For the protests?”

The man looked up, puzzled.

“Protests?"

“Ambulance workers strike protest. They have one planed for the 13th. Big turnout, I think.”

Before the other man can react at all a kid barely out of school comes out from the back room.

"You need help?”

“He needs something he can wear under his coat to keep warm, light layers, something wicking, I should think.”

“I’ll need to check in back,” the kid muttered and was off.

“You think I’m gearing up for a protest rally.”

“Crowd control. Unless you cross the line… but then I suppose you do support the ambulance workers, most people do, it seems.”

“Sleep better at night knowing emergency services is out there for my brothers.”

“Fraternal police bond or actual brothers?”

“Both. I’m not wearing a uniform, how’d you…”

“Mycroft Holmes.” He extends his hand.

“Mycroft?"

“It wouldn’t do for a Holmes to have a common name.” Mycroft answered in a voice deeper than his own, as if he was repeating something he heard often as a child.

“Lestrade.”

“Just Lestrade?”

“I’d hate to offend with the commonness of my name,” but there was laughter behind his voice.

“Lestrade… French? Parlez-Vous Français?”

“Only the really essential phrases.”

“Where is the hotel?” Mycroft offered.

“I’m going to need more wine,” Lestrade retorted.

“You are a pompous, arrogant dullard, but this is a rather fine cheese.”

“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir.”

Mycroft’s response was cut off when the shop clerk returned with a selection for Lestrade.

\--

 **December 1990**

“Not going home then, for the holidays?” Lestrade looked up to see Gregson. They’d started together. Gregson was keeping pace with him within the department. Lestrade didn’t intend for that to continue.

“I'm picking up extra shifts.”

“You don’t have any one who will take you in, then?”

“I’d take him in.” An officer trainee muttered as she passed.

“You should take her up on that. Christmas charity might be the only offer you get this year.”

”I get plenty of offers.”

Gregson looked doubtful.

“They just never seem to work out.”

\--

 **April 1, 1990**

It had to be nearly 3 am. He couldn’t quite get his bearings. So much had happened. So much had gone terribly, terribly wrong. He hadn’t been scheduled to work that day. He’d been on call. He’d checked the news reports. A couple of weeks earlier a protest over the poll tax had turned violent. 10 officers were injured along with 37 civilians.

It wouldn’t, couldn’t happen again.

Then the call came. By the time he’d arrived today, yesterday now… it had been going on for hours - rioting, looting, cars burning, chaos. He’d lost count of how many injuries he’d seen. His lungs hurt from inhaling fumes from burned out cars. His head hurt, he felt dizzy; he couldn’t remember why.

“Greg.” Lestrade heard the name called from a distance, then closer, and closer still. When he was finally able to focus on the man coming towards him, he couldn’t believe it.

“I know you… ski shop?”

“Mycroft.”

“That’s it. You slid your number in with my shopping.” As if the riots hadn’t jumbled his brain enough, he had another puzzle before him.

“You never rang.”

“Been a bit busy.” He shook his head trying to clear it. He winced. “Am I bleeding?”

“A bit.” Mycroft pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. “You seem a little… I think you might be concussed.”

Lestrade raised the cloth to his head and startled at the pain.

“Sit.”

Mycroft’s tone had been so commanding that Lestrade nearly sat on the pavement where he’d been standing.

Mycroft placed a hand on his shoulder and guided him away from the street and into the doorway of a vacant shop.

“We shouldn’t… The looting. People might…” He wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to say. He wasn’t sure it was safe on the streets. He wasn’t sure he should let his guard down. He wasn’t sure he could think clearly enough to make a better decision.

“Sit.” Mycroft commanded again.

“We…” Lestrade shook his head. It hurt; he sat.

“Good. Stay. I’ll be right back.” Mycroft left.

Lestrade doubted he’d be back. One look outside was enough to convince the sane to stay indoors tonight.

Before Lestrade mustered the strength to stand, Mycroft was back at his side. He had a bottle of something. Water? Antiseptic? Lestrade couldn’t tell. Either way his cuts were being cleaned, then bandaged. “What are you doing here?”

“My office, my flat, they are both near here.”

Lestrade winced, not this time from the pain. “Have you been home? There could be damage. You should go.”

“Come with me.”

“I…”

“You can get properly cleaned up.”

“I need to check in. There have been injuries, a lot of them. They’ll be short staffed.”

“You’re hurt. They can live without you for a few hours.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?” Mycroft gave him an appraising look.

“I am.” When he stood, Lestrade was shaky for a moment. Mycroft held out a hand to steady him.

“Let me call you cab.”

“I’ll be fine.” Lestrade repeated. He wasn’t sure, however, if he was trying to convince Mycroft or himself.

“How will I know you didn’t collapse halfway there.”

“I still have your number. I’ll call you.”

“Good. Maybe we could have lunch?”

“There will be debriefings all day tomorrow. Things went wrong here tonight. I don’t think it was just the prote…” Lestrade stopped himself, “I need to go.” He squeezed Mycroft’s hand and started to walk away.

“Greg,” Mycroft called after him. “Be safe.”

Lestrade gave a weak salute and took another step away before turning back, “You called me Greg.”

“That’s your name, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think I told you my first name.”

“You’ve had a long night. It was months ago. Maybe you forgot.”

“I didn’t.”

“Call me tomorrow. We’ll have lunch. I’ll explain.”

\--

Lestrade didn’t have a chance to call. When he got home that night his machine had a number of messages. Most of them were from his parents, brothers, and old mates. They'd all seen bits and pieces of the riots on the news. They were concerned about him. They wanted really good gossip. He didn’t want to talk to any of them.

The final message was from Mycroft. “It’s Mycroft. I’ll have to cancel our lunch date. I’m off to Manchester. I assume you’ve heard about the Strangeway prison riots. After everything the past few months… Can we reschedule? How is your head?”

\--

“Bit concerned about the head when I felt the earth move. Never been so happy to learn of an earthquake. Small tremors here. Must’ve been worse by you.” He left a message the following day. He doubted Mycroft would respond. If he was involved in the Strangeway riots he’d still be in Manchester. “What do you have to do with Strangeway?”

\--

“It gets a bit hairy when angry criminals have control of a prison rooftop and the earth begins to shake.” Mycroft explains on Lestrade’s machine the following day.

Lestrade can’t fathom when the message came in. He never heard the phone. He’d been home for all but an hour that day.

“I have nothing at all to do with Strangeway, or the prison system in general. I have a minor, tiny, insignificant position in the government.”

\--

“So insignificant they send you wherever the action is?” It had been a few days since the last message from Mycroft. Demonstrations were brewing in prisons all over the system. Lestrade found himself checking his messages with alarming frequency.

\--

“So insignificant I’m expendable.” Mycroft responded later in the week, much later.

\--

Lestrade decided that Mycroft had moved on, forgotten all about him, when he got another message on the first of May. “Lunch tomorrow?”

\--

“Sorry, sorry,” Lestrade this time. “Got called in on a routine mugging.”

\--

“£292 million routine?”

\--

“Just bits of paper, really.” Lestrade responded a few days later. “Is it just me or is this lunch thing never going to happen?”

\--

“Next week. I’ll call.”

\--

“Unless something else comes up.”

\--

“Something came up.”

\--

“It’s always something.” They’d been playing phone tag for more than a month. Lestrade stopped trying to hide his weariness. “What is it this time, then? Some dust up over postal fees in Cardiff?”

\--

“Would you believe an independence movement in Latvia?”

\--

“Minor position in the government?”

\--

 **July 1990**

“Do you sail?”

“I’ve been on a boat.”

“Would you like to go again?”

“When?”

“This weekend.“

“Don’t think I’ll be up for it.”

“Not your head? You couldn’t still have problems with your head.”

“No, my skin this time.”

“Pardon?”

“Took a week’s holiday to help my mum get prepared for my brothers weddings. Spent so much time getting the garden together I’m as red as a beet.”

“Weddings plural?”

“Identical twins from county Cork.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Your twin brothers, perchance?”

“Yes… no… sort of.”

“Explain.”

“I have five brothers. Daniel and Donald are next after me. The doctor told my mother they were fraternal, different sacks or something. Bollox, you’d be hard pressed to tell them apart if you shaved one of their heads. Edward’s next. He just started an apprenticeship. 10 years later came Thomas and Robert, the youngest, has only just started primary school.”

“So one of your twin brothers and Edward married.”

“Danny and Eddie married Aine and Aoife. Eddie and Aoife have been on and off for a bit. But Danny and Aine were quite a shock… and a bit of a rush too.”

“You suspect the baby’s Donny’s.” Mycroft waited for the inevitable shocked reaction.

“I only hope they both aren’t.” Lestrade did not miss a beat.

Mycroft had to stifle a shocked laugh. “Danny, Donny, Eddie, Tommy, Robbie and Greg? Even Gregory doesn’t quite…”

“Greg isn’t really my name.”

“No?”

“No.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. First day of primary I’m sat next to a boy named Greg Lagree. Somehow by the end of the day everybody was calling me Greg and him George. Both names stuck.”

“So your name is George then?"

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

\--

 **December 1990**

“Did you get the things I sent for the boys?” Lestrade watched the pouring rain outside his window. If it didn’t stop soon his evening plan would require some revision.

“You should be here to give them yourself.”

“I know, Mum. It’s a terrible time for me to get away.”

“Nonsense.”

“I have to work.”

“You are not staying in London for work. You are avoiding your brothers.”

“I’m not.” Lestrade answered vehemently. He was, but that was only partially it.

“I know it’s hard. You’ll meet a nice girl soon.”

“I’m having a hard time meeting anybody at all."

“You will.”

“The fates are aligned against it. It’s probably for the best, though. I’ve been terribly busy all year and it will be worse next year if I get chosen for CID training.”

“You can always find time for your personal life. You just need to make an effort.”

“The last time I made an effort, I got stood up.”

\--

 **October 1990**

“An old school chum is having a party for Halloween.” Mycroft said without introduction as soon as Lestrade picked up the phone.

“And?”

“I thought you might like to join me.”

“Do you think that’s even possible? Another attempt to get together and we might set of a tsunami.”

“It’s a new decade. The Soviet Union has crumbled. East and West Germany have reunited. Surely, we can manage a night out.”

“You won’t be busy fixing the Irish elections?” Lestrade joked, sort of.

“No. They will have to sort themselves out.” Mycroft paused for a second. “I have a meeting in Manchester that day and one in Bristol the next. I’ll hire a car. Pick you up at seven on the 31st. It’s a fancy dress party. Too bad you’re not still sporting that burn.

“You want me to come as a lobster?”

“I was thinking rakish devil.”

“No need for a costume then.”

\--

 **October 31st 1990**

“All dressed up, no place to go, and no one to go with.” Lestrade says on Mycroft’s answering machine as the clock nears midnight.

\--

“Car trouble.” Mycroft explains the following morning. “It will NEVER happen again.”

\--

“Think car trouble is up there with death and taxes… unless you plan on giving up the automobile entirely…” It’s a day and a half later. It seems odd to continue this conversation via machine. It the only way they can communicate.

\--

“Not ‘no cars’, Greg, ‘many cars’… chauffeured, I think.”

\--

 **December 25th 1990**

The rain had not stopped. Lestrade’s flat was without power. He considered it an improvement since it kept him from watching the patch of wetness on his ceiling expand. Restaurants were closed, his electric range was useless; after a long debate about stale biscuits for Christmas dinner he put on his coat and braved the rain looking for a suitable holiday meal.

A few streets away he found an open shop. As he entered the store, he tried to make notes about the assets available in his flat. His brothers’ weddings had left him the recipient of many of their unwanted gifts. He was sure he’d seen a fondue pot, maybe two. A can of Sterno, a loaf of crusty bread, and some cheese would make a palatable fondue.

It took him longer than he’d imagined finding the little tin that would heat his meal. He had almost decided to scrap the whole thing, when he saw a familiar face examining a wheel of brie. “You are a pompous, arrogant dullard but that is a rather fine cheese.”

Mycroft turned, beaming. “I told you that phrase would come in handy. Care to learn it in French?”

“What are you…?” Both men inquired at the same moment.

“Quiet Christmas.” Lestrade offered.

“Me too.” Mycroft nodded, “You’ve suffered a power cut?”

“I am trying to salvage a meal.” He reached in for a block of gruyere.  
“I forgot to buy cranberries… Cranberries are so pedestrian, but they are tradition. Then I saw this brie. What do you think of baked brie topped with cranberry sauce?”

“Sounds interesting.

“Join me?”

“All the rain we’ve been having and you want to risk making a date? The whole country could flood to prevent it.”

“Or maybe the country is flooding to bring us together. Have dinner with me.” As he spoke he took Lestrade’s baguette and added it to his shopping.

“And if I decide to stay for breakfast?”

“All the better.”

\--

 **December 25, 2010**

“Weather.” Lestrade says instead of a greeting when he answers his mobile phone. “I’ve seen the news.”

“Yes.” Mycroft affirms.

“You’ve spent much of this year stuck in airports.”

“Better icy weather than volcanic ash, I suppose.” He’d missed Greg’s birthday and a good bit of the election drama this spring. He’d spent days unable to get home, trying to stick to his diet despite all the airport temptations, and deleting 30 texts a day where Sherlock inserted rude words and other messages into Eyjafjallajökull.

“It almost feels like they’re playing our song.”

“It’s been an eventful year.” Mycroft looked out at the tarmac and tried to melt the ice with the force of his desire to get home. “Weather, earthquakes, strikes, parliament, Korea….”

“Not going well then?”

“We’ll see.”

“You’re not optimistic.”

“I’ve been away a lot this year, more than most. I've missed you, us. It makes me cranky.”

“At least we have the mobiles. Remember the marathon sessions of phone tag?” Lestrade sighed. “Stay safe?”

“I’m in an airport. How much trouble could I possibly get into?”

“I can’t even begin to imagine,” Lestrade laughed, “Stay safe.”

“You too.”

“I’m home alone.” Lestrade reminded his partner. “I’m hardly at any risk.”

“Assuming you stay there.”

“Where else would I go?”

Mycroft shrugged, not that Lestrade could see him. They desperately needed to upgrade to video chat.

“Stay safe.”

\--

The girl from dispatch sounded apologetic when she called. Over the past several years the number of people applying for detective training was in decline. The conventional wisdom held that long, irregular hours and the constant threat of being called to a case were to blame.

It could be inconvenient. He knew that. He’d certainly been called to a crime scene at the worst possible moments. Alternately, he never had to do anything in uniform… well, anything outside the flat. And the work wasn’t nearly as dull as that done by other officers.

Facing his first ever Christmas alone, he rather welcomed the distraction of cab ride to the farthest reaches of the Met’s jurisdiction. He didn’t relish the crime. The idea of being contacted by police on Christmas… Better Mycroft spend the entire holiday season in an airport bar than taking off and not returning home.

Lestrade lingered at the scene. He checked and double checked that everything was secured. It wasn’t strictly his job. But the young officers who’d had the misfortune of pulling a case on Christmas day had other places to be. Lestrade did not.

By the time he left the scene, darkness had descended. The weather had turned colder and wet. Lestrade had a coat. He had no umbrella. He never carried one. He never needed to. As he quickened his pace to keep warm he tried not to think of Mycroft.

Given how busy they were, how apt they both were to get called away at a moment’s notice, it was some wonder they’d had 19 uninterrupted Christmases before this one.

Lestrade failed to notice the car pulling up beside him until he heard the whir of the window lowering.

“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir.”

“Mycroft?” Lestrade’s whole demeanor changed in an instant. “You’re here?” He could hardly believe it even as he opened the back door and slid into the seat next to his partner. The car was incredibly, delightfully warm.

“I’ve never missed our anniversary.” Mycroft shrugged as if his turning up should never have been in doubt, “Did you really think I’d miss this one?”

“I know, from vast personal experience,” Lestrade said as he let his body rest against Mycroft’s “that you can do very nearly anything you put your mind to. But you cannot control the weather.

“Nor volcanoes,” Mycroft grumbled, still bitter. “I’m working on it. As for today? We had a slight clearing, a bit of Christmas luck.”

“During which you slipped the ground crew a fiver to deice the wings of your aeroplane before the 12 in line for clearance ahead of yours?”

“More or less.” Mycroft admitted with a wink.

“A good bit more, I’d wager.”

“Worth every shilling, and a good deal more.” Mycroft assured him. “Quiet Christmas in?”

“My very favorite kind.”


End file.
